LEGALIZING DRUGS IS A SENSIBLE, SANE POLICY

Judge John T. Curtin does not need anyone to defend him,
but I rise to the occasion.

Det. Sargent George J. Adymy's personal attack on him is
illustrative of tactics used by those who find it difficult
to support their position.

Tobacco is the deadliest addictive drug in the world,
but supermarkets, gas stations and the corner grocery store
haven't the slightest compunction in selling it. Why should
the law stop people from getting their kicks out of
nicotine, even if it does give them cancer? Whiskey, gin
and vodka will get a person higher, faster than marijuana.
They can also make people more violent than any illegal
drug possibly could. That's why bars have bouncers for the
roughnecks. Alcohol creates mayhem on the highways and
destroys marriages and jobs. But our country learned bitter
and enduring lessons from Prohibition. Indeed, when Adymy
refers to driveby shootings, he reminds us of the machine
guns fired by bootleggers at each other from their
PierceArrows.

The war on drugs has been waged since World War I.
It has brought us the largest proliferation of heroin and
cocaine our nation has ever seen at prices enormously
inflated by criminalization. Greed has produced countless
drug millionaires and subsidiary venality. Our nation
should stop risking the lives of policemen in trying to
stop people from using drugs and transfer all this effort
and money to education and treatment.

If drugs are legalized, crack houses and street sales
would disappear. Supermarkets, gas stations and corner drug
stores would stock all the drugs anybody wanted, alongside
such traditional favorites as caffeine, aspirin, alcohol
and nicotine, at comparable prices. The glamour of the
forbidden would be gone.

William J. Ostrowski
Buffalo